


Begin Again

by BookofLife



Series: A New Beginning [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 8.10, A god and his goddess, F/M, Happily Ever After, They are eternal, because things needed to be said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22999423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookofLife/pseuds/BookofLife
Summary: It isn't an after life; it's a whole new life
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: A New Beginning [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652884
Comments: 20
Kudos: 142





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> If I'm careful, I can post anther 6 oneshots following this because there's so much more that needs to be said, I think - see what you think guys. Did this help after that emotional ending? I think Arrow became a caricature of itself in the last couple of years; Olicity was its saving grace. Here's to all the fanfiction.

_“We have all the time in the world for me to tell it to you.”_

That was so, _so_ nice. It really, really was. After all this time, there wasn’t really a word to cover what this was; so _nice_ was as good a word as any. There was enough nice in this one _super_ -nice moment to fill a lifetime of niceness.

And, if what he said was remotely accurate, it was only the beginning. How could she fathom that?

But also, _how does that_ work _exactly? I’m curious._

She could have palmed her face; she was in some unknown space, in an unseen moment in time, after having deliberately waited to see her husband again for 20 very long, very lonely years and she was _curious_ about the how’s and what’s. _I never change_. Even when she was different, she remained the same. And nothing could stop her curiosity. In Oliver. Starting with his hair and ending with everything about him. His clothes- _didn’t he wear the same set the first time we met?_

Except-

_“…You sure?”_

There was the tiniest of tiny furrows between her brows that held no weight, a twinkle in her eyes and an uptick to her painted lips - a smile lighting her up from the inside - pulled from some deep reservoir inside of her, one she’d been incapable of tugging on in over twenty years.

She’d _missed_ this feeling. The fizzy lightness in her stomach, the clarity in her head, the feeling of being truly awake and the deep ache in her chest that was anything but painful. **This** was Oliver. This was a twenty-year cavity being quickly and desperately filled by everything that he was, everything she’d been deprived of.

It was a _miracle_ , a dream and a hope very much come true; against all odds. Now that it was here, that was _happening_ , it was all she could do not to float away in her head on the reality of it. On the impression he was giving off. The one that said, ‘I’m Oliver Queen, but I’m also the Spectre; my power is not exactly finite’.

Technically, he was a God. _My husband is a God_.

And… It didn’t matter. He could be the eternal blob for all she cared.

Know what did matter?

Her _husband_ was stood next to her. Her husband was _present_ and stood next to her. Her _Oliver_ was right there, _he’s here_ , with her, _with me_. In touching distance.

And he looked just like he had when-

_“Felicity Smoak? Hi. I’m Oliver Queen.”_

The start of it all.

It was… in many ways, it had been a little easier for her than it had been for other widows; she’d known all along that she was going to see him again and not in the ‘after death’ way every other person was forced to reconcile with. The impossible part that had hacked at her soul since the _first_ day he’d been gone - his last day with her - to _her_ last day with Mia, was how - after whenever something happened - she’d never, _ever_ stopped looking to her left and _up_. Just a bit.

He was so much taller than her after all. Feeling the ghost of him beside her whenever she wanted to share something with him, had been a blessing and torture.

 _I’ll never be able to let you go_. It seemed he felt the same because, sometimes, she _had_ seen him there. In the moments where her heart cried out for him, where the pain was a tad too sharp to handle all by herself, he’d appear. When she was daydreaming or lightly sleeping, he’d be there. Until now, she’d kept it to herself; thinking it was her imagination - her overworked amygdala playing with chemical cocktails to ease her buried grief - and had accepted that it was too little too late to regret the loss of her functional sanity. The price for heroism.

Even when he _spoke_ to her; low toned, always patient, achingly tender and unforgivably loving. Take your pick; he’d done it all. She’d soaked it in. She’d welcomed it. Hadn’t cared if it alluded to her breaking mental state. He’d whispered to her in varying voices, each offering unfathomable love and comfort and support through a filter.

He’d _touched_ her.

 _She_ hadn’t been able to touch him. The illusion shattered the only time she’d tried and remembering the sheer agony that had hit her body on seeing his spectral form vanish into dust, still made her want to be sick, still threatened to send her spiralling, _still_ dug knives into her chest.

Grief. Sorrow. They were just words; like love, sometimes they just didn’t cut it.

But now… well, maybe it _hadn’t_ been so crazy.

 _I’ll ask him about it later._ There was too much to say. For now, she could simply bask in what she never had to deal with again and there were so many things… no more late nights working to stop her from thinking. Or solitary ice cream binges at 2am when the going gets tough. No late-night cuddle sessions on the couch, no more reaching for the hand she knew wasn’t there anymore, no more _silence_.

No more empty bed.

And then there were the things other people would say to her, the _I’m sorry for your loss_. And, _how are you doing? Doing okay?_ The, _do you think you’ll ever remarry?_ And the, _you were the Green Arrow’s wife! Whoa! Did you ever see him in action?_ Or, _I wish Oliver were here; I don’t know what to do_.

No more reminders. No more absence of empathy. No more going to bed and waking up cold, reaching out only to still find his side of it crushingly absent of him. No more deliberately filling each moment with a task so as to not have to _remember_. No more bruising of the invisible indelible kind.

No. More.

Peering up at him now, fingers laced with his - _I’m never letting go again_ \- she wondered if he knew all about it, or if he could feel the pounding of her heart against his arm where she leaned. Another thing she’d missed until it had honed into a diamond of personal anguish. It had become a need, having that place for her to nuzzle on his shoulder.

 _I’m home_. “So, what does that mean exactly?” It was almost impish, the way she said it. The fact that she could be impish now, weightlessly so, was glorious. “All the time in the world…?”

She just… wanted a little clarification, that’s all.

And really, how had she gone _this_ long without his exquisite gentleness baring down on her? It used to come out of him in slithers of heat and light. Then pulses. Then waves. Now? It was a constant. As time passed her by, she feared she’d taken for granted what he used to shine down upon her. Upon _only_ her.

She’d been lucky; it still filled the cracks in her with sunlight.

“It means exactly how it sounds.” The air around them seemed to hush with his every word, but she knew that was her imagination; _she_ hushed every time he spoke. His voice was as delightful as it had ever been. A lazy spread of kisses down her naked spine, the trail of his fingertips over skin, the embers on a fire, the aftertaste of herself on his tongue. “It means what I said it does. It also means a few things that I didn’t say. And none of it matters at all.”

A ripple of something fluttered over her at the insinuation of _power_. HIS. He’d never- _they’d_ never had that before; the freedom that power could allow a person to admit that _what I say goes and what goes is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things_. They’d never known what it was like to be Barry and Kara and Clark and all the others with superhuman abilities who didn’t have to try quite so hard or at all.

Oliver and Felicity not only knew what it was like to try hard for every little nook and cranny, they knew what it was like to have to endure when they failed.

Now they had _all_ the choices and all the room to make them. It was a heady feeling; one too new and too large to explore all at once.

_“It means what I said it does.”_

Wise, he sounded _wise_. He sounded like he understood in a different way to _before_. This was after. _I mean, he’s always been wise, when he wasn’t being stubborn_. Oliver had been transformed. She might have worried just how much, in a past life, except-

_“No matter who you are or what you become, no matter who I am or what I become, you will always be… you will always be the love of my life. People change. That never will.”_

It was peaceful. The kind of utter tranquillity she’d only ever seen from him when they’d laid in bed together; when they’d been touching and speaking wishes aloud that they knew would shatter if uttered in an octave that was anything higher than a whisper.

It was all coming back to her; she’d hadn’t forgotten the details.

 _Couldn’t_.

“By _that_ implication…” she pried with a slight twist of her head, her voice almost melodic as she took her sweet time- And she could now. She could take her time. She could be patient. She could pry. And tease. And poke. And play. It was her turn. _Their_ turn. Finally. _I’m trembling_. “I could _very_ easily jump to the conclusion that time works differently here; as in _not_ in a standard linear progression and- I mean, I’m wearing glasses!” She tapped the rim of them. “The same glasses I haven’t worn since Big Belly and Dim Sum were a staple diet, are _back_ on my face. And I’m pretty sure I’m wearing clothes I haven’t stepped into since before we stopped working at Queen Consolidated and- what are you smiling about?”

And he _was_ smiling. _Hubba hubba. God, look at him._ He hadn’t really stopped, and it was beatific. _Oliver_. “Am I smiling?”

“You-” she giggled, grinning like a lunatic, nose scrunching, “you can’t feel that thing on your face?”

It was different to before, that smile. Even at his happiest, it had never looked _that_ resplendent.

Then, to complete this picture of perfection, this humming noise softly rumbled out from deep inside his chest. _Oh_ , she’d missed that too. The sound, the vibration and natural virility seeping out of him and into her on cold nights when she’d accidentally made him laugh.

Like right now.

“I feel _you_.” He murmured back, soft as can be.

It was almost too much. Too full. _Too_ happy.

Something deep inside of her contracted with the sharpness of a knife. As if part of her was still reluctant to tempt fate because she knew full well now that superstitions existed as universal constants. Having lost him, there was a small part of her that was terrified that it would happen again and again, completely out of her control. So, part of her was expecting some travesty to occur and ruin this flawless moment by taking him away from her again. It could be a call on a phone that she hadn’t brought with her. A visit from John or Dinah or Laurel to tell them that, no, they couldn’t be happy right now. Couldn’t be happy _ever_. There was work to be done and no one else wanted to do it, so they had to.

Being free of that was making something inside her diaphragm, something that would inevitably screw with her tear ducts, quake.

This was thirty years in the making.

Staring up at him, his eyes undeterred and unblinkingly on her own, she marvelled. They weren’t trying. Weren’t deliberately taking the moment to appreciate each other’s existence, because they might not have another for weeks because of the mission, the city; she could remember that acutely even to this day. Now there was no mission.

There was no more Hood.

No more Arrows.

No more Overwatch.

No more, ‘talk to me Felicity’.

No more, _find another way_.

No more, _why is it always you?_

Not anymore.

It came with its own cost. A cavernous loss of the past; a history that had made her happy, mostly. Yet, it was with a sadness that she’d mourned _and_ dealt with those memories over the years. Funny how a sound, a smile, a voice, a glance, could bring it all back. Could make it feel like yesterday, like no time had passed. Could make her eyes sting and for the feeling to finally _not_ to be a painful one.

Oliver just _was_ , now. He existed. He could just _breathe_ without looking over his shoulder. Without waiting for betrayal or an enemy. And the way he looked now- it was clear; he was revelling in it. The _knowing_ that everything was finally okay.

Eyes slipping to and from his own, she found what she was looking for. “You’re _laughing_ at me?”

Head moving ever so slightly, as if unwilling to look away from her, “no,” he denied it-

But he was; his eyes were twinkling. He was laughing at her and his _only_ answer was the widening of his gorgeous smile; on a face stripped of age, of wear and tear, even as his eyes screamed experience of the ages.

Eyes that told her that all of it, everything that he was and is, loved her.

“You are.” She insisted, wrapping herself around his arm - breasts against his bicep - she pressed into his body and held his eyes with the grateful laughter in hers. Not that she had to try. “You’re laughing and I don’t know why.” Mystified, she waited; breathless to hear his answer.

Breathless to do _this_ again. To banter.

Everything that was already known, felt new. It was intoxicating. And it was all still so easy to do.

His exhale was so full of the _everything_ behind his eyes, it was more a sigh. A weightless sigh, full of happy serenity. “You were talking.”

She nodded against his sternum, observing the way the light outside stroked fibres of unfamiliar green alongside the silver and blue in his irises. _Must be the Spectre in him_. “Yes, I tend to do that.”

Actually, _no_. She didn’t. Hadn’t. Not for… not since he’d left her. _Them_. Her whirling dervish of words had been held hostage by his departure, then shot to smithereens when she’d realised that she’d have to spend years without him.

There had been no one to talk to anymore. No one to listen. No one who’d want to. As a baby, Mia had been enraptured by her bouts of nonsense, but it had long since died. There was no one else to love enough to want to be truly be herself for. _I thought I’d lost it_. The ability to babble or be excited. Giddy.

And it was like he knew that. There was just something there, in his face. Something that told her that he knew just how difficult it had been for her, because he’d felt it. _Seen_ it.

It would take time for her to both appreciate and endure the depths of feeling that he could now express for her. She could wait. She could take it.

“I missed the talking.” He confessed, enjoying the sight of her blinking up at him owlishly. “I missed the sound of your voice.”

Oh, that wasn’t fair. He couldn’t do that; she didn’t want to get emotional. It felt almost impossible just then to remember the sorrow she’d carried with her for two decades, but hearing that he’d missed her - that he had in fact been waiting for her as she raised their children as much as she’d been waiting to see him again, tore into her anew - made her shoulder pinch, made her want to fall into him and _smother_ him in her babbles and her kisses and her love until he couldn’t breathe without taking her into himself.

The desire to do something exactly that, was almost irresistible.

“Hey.” He whispered into her bowed head and-

_Hey._

_Felicity._

_Love is too small a word._

His voice was devastating in the best way. “Sorry.” Forehead against his sternum, her breath was shaky at best. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m just…”

“I know.”

“I’m really, really happy.” The words didn’t touch how happy she was just then, but she didn’t know _how_ to express the sheer volume of it just then. There was too much; too much to feel and say. She didn’t know how to take it.

“I know.” He repeated. “The thing is,” and here his other hand made short work of her control by simply sliding up her arm before his hand _held_ her bicep in its grasp; an, _I’m here now_ , “you don’t _have_ to hide how you feel anymore.”

Sniffling, she inhaled futilely for fortitude; smelling nothing but Oliver as she lifted her head to gaze back up at him. “I never hid how I felt with you.”

“Yes, you did.”

She looked up at him.

The hand cupping her arm slipped up over her shoulder, leaving a trail of warmth down her back until it appeared on the dip of her spine. Keeping her pressed to him, keeping her _silent_ as he spoke in that same caramel-glazed tone; the same softness, the same wonderful light flowing freely from him. “You did, because you had to; because you didn’t want me distracted.” From what had to be done. “There was always, would always be, another mission.” There was no hesitance in him, and he didn’t stop looking her like she was his world. “So, I let you for the same reasons.” Hear no evil. “I took it for granted that we’d have time, later. Always later. And we didn’t get that time. Now all the things I wanted to say to you, all the things I wanted you to tell me…” and he just looked at her. Looked and cherished her in the same way she was doing with him. “We can now.” It was frank, it was completely honest. It was a promise he’d failed to keep but one he no longer had to make, because it had already been fulfilled. “All those times we were stopped, all those-”

“Ssh.” Fingertips covering his mouth, she stopped him before he could make it all better. It already was.

But again, it was a lot to process. They’d need time, so much more than an hour here to get through the ocean of feeling between them. It might take _months_ before she could speak about it _all_ without sobbing, without falling.

Years.

“It’s okay.” She whispered with all the affection, the love and longing she’d kept inside; undented. Unspoiled. Not weakened or eroded by the passage of time, by the stretch of space. Not tainted by want, grief, pain or the bitter acceptance of having to watch as others got to have their happy endings. “You don’t have to repeat it. We have all the time in the world after all. I just,” teeth pulling in her lower lip - knowing she couldn’t help herself when it came to mysteries - and feeling the soft scruff on his chin brush against her hand as his smile turned indulgent, fond and so unbelievably in love with her that it caught in her throat, she half shrugged with that same puckishness, “really wanted to know the answer.”

It was the first time since she’d given birth all those years ago, that she’d seen a smile as radiant as his as his was just then. “Because mysteries need to be solved.”

The call-back had her nodding rapidly, until- “Wait, did I ever say that to you?”

Contemplating without effort, humming, he shook his head. “No.” As he her arms slowly slide around his middle; she watched his breathing deepen. “You said that to Walter.”

“So, how do you _know_ I said it?”

He just looked at her.

 _Spectre_. Taking him in, she hazarded a guess. “There’s a lot that I don’t know, isn’t there?” A lot of years she’d missed, time he’d spent without her.

There was something so easy in his face as he looked at her. “You’re a fast learner.”

Her stomach _popped_ as her brows rose. “You’ll tell me?”

“I’ll tell you _everything_. But, a little at a time. It can be… difficult to process.” He took a minute just to exalt in the way she’d let him take her weight against him. Another tick off the list of things she’d missed, and it looked like he had too. _What did_ his _list look like?_ “I have no doubt that you can.”

Chin resting on his chest, she was so, _so_ happy to be exactly where she was. “Yeah?”

“You’re Felicity Smoak.” The rumble of his voice against her breasts and throat was exquisite. “And you did read the book of OA without… dying.” The little shudder from him, from the _Spectre_ , told a story. “Though I think a little mystery is a good thing.”

“Okay,” she could give him that, “but what about my question?”

Arms enfolding around her, he breathed into her space. “I’m…” his hesitance didn’t set off alarm bells like it might have done once upon a time; he was just choosing the right words, “immortal.” Pause. “Now. Immune and near-invulnerable.”

She was so easily taken in by the feel of him, the soothing quality to his voice - it was like falling into a warm bath - that it took her a moment. “Explain that sentence.”

It wasn’t as if she didn’t know what had happened to him, she knew it all. But- _Immortal?!_ As in, not just powerful but also living forever, un-aging, undying…

Very much God-like.

“When I merged with The Spectre, I became something else. Something much more. I’m still Oliver.” The reassurance was unnecessary. The stroke of his thumbs over her thin blouse was absolutely necessary, _continue please._ “My job now is to watch over the multiverse I created-”

“You gave birth.” She couldn’t help it; the joke was right there. “You gave birth and it was to a multiverse-”

His arms squeezing her sides made her squeak. “I’d say it was more an explosion than a birth,” the forced taper to his brow and the slide of his tone told her he was faking seriousness, “but it’s accurate.”

“Exploded is very… phallic.”

His eyes squinted and it hit her like a bullet. He used to do that. Whenever she’d say or do something his mind couldn’t immediately get around, he’d squint at her. “How?”

“Well… it’s me.”

“Yes.”

“And _exploded_ makes me think about orgasms.” His eyes closed in such a way to make her think that every word from her was pure pleasure to him instead of ridiculous or embarrassing. But he’d always liked listening to her babbles. And it had been a long time. “ _Or_ your exploding arrows and the ten too many jokes I made once upon a time about the arrows in your quiver needing release.”

Air forced through his nostrils; nostalgia coated his voice. “It got harder and harder to concentrate with every single one.”

“I _bet_ it got harder.”

The burst of laughter through him was more a huff of air but it transformed his handsome features into something Da Vinci would demand be painted to be immortalised for life. _And he is immortal now, so…_ Immortal. Immortal eyes, immortal nose, immortal lips, immortal voice, immortal soul. Immortal heart. After being put through so much, after enduring and waiting, it was almost impossible to accept.

“Wow.” She said aloud.

The lazy happiness in his eyes when he reopened them, made her melt. “Hm?”

“I always thought you were beautiful.” She admitted and maybe it was shameful that she’d never been able to say it when he’d been with her before. There hadn’t been time, there’d _never_ been time. “And that the world would be a harsher place without you in it.” Wasn’t that the hard truth. Twenty years both crawled and flew by; a mixture of need and longing soothed by the pride and love she’d felt with every memory of her children. By a patience she’d never felt before, because she’d known where she’d be found at the end of it all. “I know what that feels like.” The crawl of her voice made his head dip nearer to hers, made him focus so wilfully on her that it was genuinely difficult for her mouth to continue movement. “But now the multiverse gets to keep it.”

_I get to keep it._

It was like he could see the bitterness. He could see how part of her, the part she’d kept hidden from Mia and William, had hated the world for not missing his presence the way she had, did. The way it hadn’t stopped rotating in his absence. How Barry and Thea and so many others had been granted their happily ever after’s despite knowing that he hadn’t gotten his. How everyone had seemed to be just fine at the end of those eight years. The way, after not too long at all, Oliver’s name had become a whisper in the air instead of spoken in day to day conversation. How he became history instead of present. How people had simply… moved on without him.

It had hurt. It had been a pain _beyond_ hurt.

“Felicity.”

Her head tilted. “That’s my name.”

“Felicity.” He repeated, as if to say, _I’m not them; don’t hide from me_. “When I… died,” the whispered word was kept between them; between his solid arms keeping her still inside them, between his eyes that held hers and told her to breathe through the ache that the memories still inspired, “I transformed. And when I woke, I was told by the Presence that-”

“Presence?” _Say what now?_

He didn’t have to move more than a few inches to kiss the tip of her nose. “I’ll tell you later.” _Yummy_. “It told me,” he continued as she snuggled in, “that I was no longer human. That I was still Oliver Queen, but I was also the Spectre and to be the Spectre, I _can’t_ be human. I can’t be mortal.”

Staring at him, she nodded through every word. “Okay.”

“I… there aren’t words. What came later was a pride I’d never felt in life that wasn’t linked to my marriage to you or to our child. It was a new purpose. A responsibility,” but he was trying, hard, to give her understanding, “that told me that I’d… that I did good. That Oliver Queen could rest, and I could be something else. As the Spectre, my love for all life born in both the light the dark is infinite, but at the time…” chest heaving on a sigh that seemed to come out of nowhere, she watched his eyes flicker away from her and braced, “I almost destroyed this place.”

 _Hold On._ “What?” She was missing something, “Why?”

But he seemed to need a moment to stare out at the sun shining through a window that she didn’t yet know was real or illusion. Mostly she didn’t care; illusion or no, her was with her for real. But he’d just said-

_“I almost destroyed this place.”_

So _… not a dream._ That was one off the list.

But then he explained and every thought in her head tumbled out of her ears.

“For a moment, I thought I was being told that I would have live an eternity.” Quiet, introspective, he breathed out before he looked back down at her. “Without you.”

Her heart missed a step. “…Oh.” Now it made sense, and it wasn’t even conceited. She could imagine vividly how she’d feel if she’d been told that after twenty years, that not only did she not get to see her husband, she didn’t even get to reunite with him in death.

“When I created the new multiverse, I thought I’d just… go.” He wasn’t upset, there was nothing indicative of stress or fear in his voice. “I thought I’d go to wherever you’re supposed to go when you die and that I’d wait for you there, that it would feel like the blink of an eye.” It was as if he’d had years to deal with whatever he’d felt and years more to analyse it to death, but it didn’t stop the burn behind her rib cage; the acute pain throbbing there for him. That he’d had to feel even a second of it. “The idea that I wouldn’t even meet you in death, well… I won’t deny that I lost it.” Empathy. She knew how it felt to know that she had no choice but to live her life without him or sacrifice their daughter. A long walk down a long, quiet, lonely walkway towards him. But she’d never had to suffer, even for an instance, knowing that she’d never see him again, in life or in death. It wasn’t something she’d wish on even her enemies and there were many who deserved the lowest levels of hell. “It lasted a mere second, but it was like being torn open. The despair I felt,” he told her, head shaking left to right; dry humour she was too twist-turned upside down to appreciate just then, coating his voice, “it could have caused a black hole.” And with his power now, maybe it could have. “I almost destroyed this beautiful place. But the Presence, it wrapped around me and told me that you were coming.” The next breath he took sounded beatific to her ears, not in the least because of the breathtakingly poignant sight of the earnest yet sure smile on his face lighting up the places inside her screaming in horror at thought of him going through that alone. “That against all odds, you were going to keep your promise. That I still had a job to do, a role to fulfil. It told me to stop. And wait.”

 _For me_. She couldn’t be blamed for trembling. “That’s a lot, Oliver.”

“I know.”

Moth opening, it took her two tries to get her breath. “I- I’m sorry you had to go through that

“Ssh. I‘m okay.” The tip of his nose very carefully brushing down the length of her own, made a wreck of her by the time his lips brushed her mouth. “Hindsight and time. It’s a powerful combination.”

Her lips brushed over his. A small, useless consolation. “I’ll bet.”

“Until there’s a new Spectre,” he abruptly added, “this is my existence.”

She was so close to euphoria that she barely understood the words at first. “… _New_ Spectre?”

“There won’t be one.” The words came from his throat because his lips were busy with her chin. “Not for a very, _very_ long time.”

She could easily infer what that meant and, at what point was this all supposed to reach a limit? _Or does Oliver even have limits anymore._ She had a feeling the answer was no.

“This place?” He continued, seemingly a-ok with his immortal status and all, “is where I will remain when I’m not needed.”

“Uh huh.” She sighed at the feel of his cheek brushing hers in his quest to reacquaint himself with her scent. “You smell good.”

He took that in his stride. “With you here,” and inhaled with an open mouth over the skin at the junction between her ear and the column of her throat, “it’s home.” Quiet. Lulling. He was just talking; there was nothing in his words to fear. “In order to exist here with me,” and though she could feel something coming, he didn’t try to hide the truth; they were far enough past that now that everything else was ephemera, “I made you immortal too.”

 _That_ was where she mentally stumbled. “Wha… what?”

He pulled back just enough to see her face; physically, she wasn’t going anywhere. “You’re immortal now.”

“No, I… right.” She nodded. “Immortal.” _Okie dokie_. “Um… okay, but you’re missing a tiny, tiny, thread, Oliver.”

“Oh yeah?” Everything about was just so… sexy. The voice especially, the body pressed to her, the utter focus of him on her.

“There’s nothing special about Felicity Smoak.” How could _she_ be immortal? “How could I be immortal?”

And it was the first time that a slither of disquiet entered his expression, his smile quieting as it did. “There’s _everything_ special about Felicity Smoak.” It was injury. She’d injured him with what she thought was the truth. “Because of you,” his eyes flickered up over her hair and back down to the rims of her spectacles, “I was able to reach for the light that I didn’t see inside myself. I would have died. I would have left you all alone. I’ve seen other Oliver’s on other versions of our earth. The _first_ universe. Only a handful ever achieved true happiness. Most died young and the ones that didn’t, secretly wished they had. I was extraordinarily lucky to have met you, the seemingly unimportant Felicity Smoak. I am only the Spectre because I learned how to love so deeply and completely that I _could_ sacrifice my previous life to save everyone else’s.” The way his body depressed into hers felt like the first reminder from him that he was still, in part, a human. “Our love saved the multiverse.”

Though they were alone, her voice was hushed. “Please don’t lessen what you did.” Or remind her that she loved him enough for him to love himself and therefore give him the strength to care deeply enough about strangers, to leave her. To sacrifice his life for them. To give up the thing he’d always wanted; a family. A home.

“I’m not.” He promised. “I’m celebrating your part. I’m still in awe over your strength.” He murmured, looking exactly as his words described; awed. “I always will be.”

It was too much really to go through all at once. She scooted in as much as she could without merging with his body, because what she really wanted just then - apart from answers - was, well, sex. She wanted him all to herself. “There’ll be time to talk about me and my ghosts.”

“Yes. There will.”

He looked, sounded, blissful.

But. “You _made_ me immortal.” Like, explain please.

“As the Spectre I have a level of governance.” He explained, because the explanation helped so very much, _not_. “A _high_ level of governance.”

“You can make people immortal.” Each word was spoken slowly, stressed and stretched, just to make it clear for herself after all. “Just like that?”

There was a moment where he didn’t speak, before-

“No.” Blue eyes searched blue. “Just you.”

And the answer felt like so much more. “Oliver.”

“I was granted permission. To be here with me,” he added, “you can’t be what you once were. And you can’t go back.”

Only forward. She straightened her glasses on impulse. “I know.” Her hands stroked up his back, confused by his slight show of worry at her choice. _Now_ of all times. “I know, it’s okay.” She swallowed. “You once said that it didn’t matter who we became, that our love for each other would never change.”

“Never.” A whispered reality, once that wrote lines and pages across the lines of his brow; he looked so intensely sure of it, and he was. She was too. “I’m no longer just the Oliver Queen who had to leave you, or the Green Arrow. Technically, I had to die twice to become… this. It was the only way to be with you again without us _both_ dying and that wasn’t something I was prepared to consider. Not ever.”

“Oliver,” _come on husband_ , “you became the Spectre to save everyone.” She was under no illusions about that. Heroism took on a whole new meaning when it came to her very capable husband.

“And in doing so, allowed myself the chance to be with you again in this life and every life hereafter.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. “You should know that I _can_ take you with me.”

“Where?”

“When I’m called, anywhere.”

“But- but I thought I couldn’t leave!” The itch to play with her glasses was a nervous twitch she’d been sure she’d grown out of when she’d gotten laser eye surgery and- “Wait, why _do_ I need glasses?” He hadn’t answered before.

The colour of his eyes had stayed with her over the years, but she knew they’d never stop astonishing her; especially not as they stared deep into her own, like they were doing now. “You need glasses again because you needed glasses when I first saw you.”

It was fascinating. “The age thing?” _Loquacious_. Genius or not, right now she felt like a child. The words were barely audible as her eyes flickered over his youthful face. The face she remembered appearing from under his hood as he’d lain in the backseat of her car, bleeding out.

And her face no longer carried the twenty years without him or the eight with him before that.

His gentle calmness rolled off him in waves. “It’s… where I wanted to start.”

Again. Just with them two this time. She got it. He wanted to be in a place that was _just_ about- just _for_ them both.

He’d fixed everything. His mother was alive now, Roy and Thea weren’t estranged, neither was Emiko from the Queen family.

But this- _this_ was what he wanted the most?

And it had nothing to do with asking for her permission this time; she knew that, and he did too. She’d accepted that there was no going back, had revelled in it, actually. She’d taken a chance that should have been terrifying but had been as easy as 1, 2, 3. Take a leap? More like choose the happy option of the complete life pack: one Oliver Queen and Happily Ever After Eternity package to go, please?

Missing Mia and William was a given, just as worrying about her children was inevitable. But they’d spread their wings; they’d left her home. Anything could happen to them whilst she was elsewhere in the city. She’d had to choose. A life half lived or wholeness.

It had been more than a little difficult, living with a piece of her soul detached from her body.

The piece that had reunited with her when she’d heard his voice, seen his smile; when she’d kissed him.

Not knowing what would happen once she’d reached the other side had been a mystery that she’d been all too eager to test. It had been up to the Monitor… she just hadn’t known that it all been up to Oliver.

So, when she whispered - standing on tipy-toes so that she reached his chin - as if fearing they were being overhead, _old habits die hard_ , it was with an embarrassing amount of childlike wonder. “You can _do_ that?”

He didn’t speak his response; he brushed it against her mouth, a gentle re-awakening.

This place… was his.

“I have so many questions,” she breathed against his lips, eyes closed, murmuring; “but they can wait.”

He made a teasing sound of divergence, though the lowness of his voice lent to its ability to tantalise her skin. “Can they though?”

“I can control myself.” She whispered, already proving herself wrong by the way her arms slid up and around the back of his head so that when she opened her mouth, tasting him would be easy.

And his mouth moved with hers with the kind of expertise she’d long since been absent of, falling into the spell of them. _Of us_.

They kissed for long enough to stop counting time. His hand moved to cup the back of her head, fingers testing the tightness of her bobble but keeping her _right_ there for sweep after sweep after sweep. A thorough investigation.

A re-taking.

Then the throaty rumble of his want, of how much he’d missed her - of his absolute devotion to this feeling between them that they’d been denied for too long - made his voice _wobble_ when he spoke again:

“That’s the thing, baby.” Wrecked, he sounded wrecked and it was the last thing she’d expected to hear in him just then. After being so calm, so peaceful. It made her eyes sting, until an overwhelming crush of emotion hammered at her from behind her closed lids. Eyes she’d squeezed shut as her forehead pressed to his. As her fingers shook. As light poured over them. “You don’t have to now.” She felt his throat move, felt his nose nuzzle against hers and his arms lift her body against him. Her feet came off the floor and she all but hugged her arms around his head. “ _We_ don’t have to.”

They didn’t have to control themselves now. And never again. They didn’t have to wait. They _don’t_ have to seek permission to choose their love over all else, to put it first instead of last. They no longer had to check if Dinah or Rene or Curtis were in need. They no longer needed to wait for John. Or watch him walk away from them. 

This was their time. They’d sacrificed for it. They’d paid for it and then some.

“So,” and it sounded like she had a cold with the way she was trying and failing not to cry, _happy tears_ , “if we had sex right here, no reservations,” nasally and ridiculous, “we’d get away with it?”

The wet laugh that broke free from him was muffled by his sudden preoccupation with her shoulder. And neck.

“I missed your laugh.” She sighed into the space above his head where he’d stilled, where he was breathing her in. _I missed everything about you_. “I knew I’d be the one with all the questions.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t have a few.”

He said it like he knew it was an understatement. “I just like to horde information.”

“I know. It’s something I love about you.” He pulled back just enough to see her squint at him, his shorter hair oddly absent from his forehead. “Really. It can be quiet here.”

“So,” and this time she really did push her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “you’ve been sitting here for twenty years… waiting?”

He made a ‘sort of, but not _really’_ noise that didn’t appease her. “Time works differently here, but… yes.”

Like she’d guessed. “Immortal.”

His nod was barely a head dip. “Yeah.”

“Both of us?” Just to make _absolutely_ certain.

“Yes.”

“I-I’m…” it was difficult to say, impossible to fathom, heady to recognise, “immortal now.”

“Until the next Spectre.”

“Which could be whenever the frack, right?”

He didn’t so much hum and har about it as he did flat out admit. “It could be never. It won’t be before a thousand years has ended at least.”

“Huh. A thousand years.” _Chuck me_. “Immortal. Me. With you.”

With her weight against his chest and his eyes on hers, his voice was an even softer level of heart he’d yet to reach. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Her stare was pointed. “It’s a pretty big deal, Oliver.”

Head tilting, he deliberated without really deliberating at all. “I see it more as a way to be with you forever.” And… he smiled. Again. “With all the chances and choices left to us.” Looking her in the eye in that way that he was so good at.

How was she supposed to respond to any of that with anything but hdgkfkuhfukefhkw? Coherency be damned, this was heaven. “I don’t care if we’re dead or alive,” she whispered at him as she closed in on his mouth, “this is perfect.”

The same mouth that smiled in a curve of raw love and sensuality as her mouth smooched his upper lip. “You’re not _dead_ , Felicity.” He licked that lip, tasting her there; eyes softening into the kind of burn that was normally inappropriate for the workplace. “Technically, neither am I.”

“This place,” still off the floor, still being gently rocked by his mass, she arched her neck to take a third look about them; feeling the electrifying presence of his eyes on her as she did so, another thing she’d missed; “it isn’t real, is it?”

“Oh no,” he managed to nod and shake his head at the same time, “this is _real_.”

Her head swivelled back. “What?”

But he was seeing the city through the window of his mother’s office; an office that hadn’t existed in so long. “This world has been here before memory. It’s almost pre-determined, but I stopped it from starting - so to speak - until I wanted it to. Basically, it’s an alternate dimension where anything I say goes.” He stated without so much as a stutter. “But everyone in here is quite real.”

“Everyone… in here?”

So close to her face, she could count everyone of her lashes as he whispered. “Three, two, one-”

Down the hall outside of the office they were in, she heard footsteps.

Eyes popping, she stared into his and whispered back. “Holy shit.”

“It could be our story, from start to finish. It can be anything.” He mouthed.

“I don’t understand…”

“I know.” Another kiss, another worship. “Give me time. We lived a lifetime in 8 years. I had the time of my life with you Miss Smoak. A mortal life.” He eyed her and for a brief moment, she saw the boy in the man who was killed on an island in Chin sea. “Care to spend an eternity seeing if we can top that?”


End file.
